News: Linux kernel patch reveals TLB bug's workings
 

In our first article about AMD's translation lookaside buffer (TLB) erratum and its effects on quad-core Opteron supply, we mentioned that AMD was prepping a kernel patch for the 64-bit flavor of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Upgrade 4. Unlike AMD's BIOS fix and microcode update, which we've heard induces a 10-20% performance hit, the Linux patch was said to reduce performance by less than 1%. AMD has now publicly released the patch's source code, revealing additional details about the nature of the TLB erratum.